WAACS AND WRENS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 264, 8 November 1939, Page 11

WAACS AND WRENS.

CHIEFS JOIN UP.

READY FOR SERVICE AGAIN.

j NEW AIR AUXILIARY.

(Special—By Air Mail.) LONDON. The war found many of the women's loaders of 1914-18 ready again to serve their country. The list of chiefs of the various women's services in 1939 includes many familiar to those who remember 1914.

Best-known of all perhaps is that of Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, Chief' Commandant of the A.T.S. (Auxiliary Territorial Service). In those old days she was Controller of the "Waacs" from their formation in February 7, 1917, until September, 1918, when she was appointed Commandant of the Women's Royal Air Force. Dame Helen is one of those rare examples of a practical intellectual. She is a Doctor of Science, and a Professor of Botany.

Another veteran who returns is Mrs.' Laughton Matthews, director of the Wrens (Women's Navy Service, or ".Jill Tars") with an office in the Admiralty. She served with the old Wrens in the last war and has kept ill touch with the Navy since then as a prominent official in the Girl Guide Sea i (angers. A name not so well known as either of these, but belonging to an ex-service woman all the same, is that of Miss • lane Trefusis Forbes, given a top post as head of the "Waafs" (Women's Auxiliary Air Force) which made its public debut, before the King, in its new air force blue uniform at the Hyde Park rally in July. "Senior Director" • lane-—that is her official rank—was in the Women's Volunteer Reserve during t lie last Mar. In the intervening years she has run a training school for kennel maids near Haslemere.

The "Wuafs" will act as cooks, mess orderlies, equipment assistants, motor drivers, clerks and fabric workers for flying squadrons and balloon centres.